As i write this, i know i am going to die any day now. He is surely going to kill me. I have seen it in his eyes. I have seen the hatred, i have seen the hurt and most importantly, the revenge which seethes his soul.
As i look back on my life, all i remember is May 26th 1980. That was the day my fate was sealed. As i heard the words "we the jury find the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter and arson and hereby sentence him to life imprisonment", i was almost too calm. I knew what i had done. I wasn't hopeful of my freedom. I had given up on life a long time ago. I was probably dead inside already. These people will only put a body in prison, the soul is already freed, i thought to myself. I was so wrong.
The first few years in prison were horrible. They almost made me wish for death. But as the days went by, i grew comfortable with the prison life. It became routine. The constant fear for life, the almost unbearable pain and the humiliation, all became routine. I had found my own set of friends, if you could call them that. One of them was a serial killer, one was a bank robber. Some others were rapists. And i was the arsonist. All in all, it was good bunch of people.
Then one day, we had guests. New inmates. And as we watched them enter the walls of this hell hole we called home, we could see the eternal hope in their eyes. They still had the fight in them. They were still angry. It will go away soon, just give them a few years. I hadn't noticed him then. Johnny that is. Not that it would have mattered. He would have found me anyway.
I met Johnny during one of our construction hours. He was as old as my boy would have been now. Give or take a few years. And there was something about this boy. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe he reminded me of my own little boy. No. I shouldn't think about it, i told myself. But the resemblance was almost too eerie. As time went by, he grew comfortable around us. He was part of our group. He was an intelligent boy, he told us how he had successfully robbed many a bank with his deception and con skills. It was only this one last time, he said, that something went wrong. Maybe someone from the group had ratted or something. He didn't know, he said. As i look back now, maybe it wasn't a mistake. Of course it wasn't. He just wanted to get in here somehow. To put an end to his misery and anger. To finish what i had started 20 years ago.
As i was taking a shower yesterday, he came to me. "You are here for killing your family isn't it !?" how did he know that, i though to myself. I hadn't told anybody about it. I was probably afraid of telling myself of what i had done. "Your wife Melinda and your son Bob, right !? You remember that night don't you ? You remember how you strangled mom before you slit her throat and watched her die. You remember me crying while i sat next to her lifeless body ? You remember putting fire to the house , your own house ?!". How could he possibly know that ? It couldn't be. I was sure i had burned the house and everything inside it down to ashes. How could he have escaped. "Is that you Bobby ?" i asked. "Did you survive that night ?". "No dad, i couldn't. I couldn't escape, i didn't want to leave mom just by herself. I was scared for her. I wanted to be there by her side." "Then who are you ? My son is dead isn't he ?". "Yes dad, consider this my second coming. And now you will get what you deserve. My revenge will be done."
As i write this, i know i am going to die any day now. He is surely going to kill me. I have seen it in his eyes. I have seen the hatred, i have seen the hurt and most importantly, the revenge which seethes his soul.
